Left Hanging

by Patricia McLinn

  Tom Burrell came around the corner from the front driveway with his usual long-legged gait.

  Most people would have started talking right off, about how he’d knocked but nobody answered. He said nothing as he approached me at an unhurried pace, his gaze taking in the half-full food dish, the dogless yard, and me. He sat beside me without permission. Also without talking.

  After a few minutes, I realized it hadn’t been that I didn’t want company, I just hadn’t wanted conversation.

  A minute more, and I realized that with Burrell there, the examination of my ex’s role in my career had settled back into its corner. Sure, it growled a little, but it stayed there.

  Then Shadow emerged from behind the garage. He stopped and looked from me to Burrell and back. He sniffed the air audibly. Slowly, he approached, coming at an angle that brought him closer to me than Burrell.

  “What kind of dog do you think Shadow is?” I asked.

  “Male.”

  “I guessed that when I saw him peeing standing up. I meant what breeds do you think he has in him.”

  “As many as he could get.”

  I grimaced.

  “Best you could call him is a Wyoming ranch dog,” he said.

  “Is there such a breed?”

  “More of a generic than a breed.”

  “Don’t you think he has collie in him?”

  “Like Lassie?” He ended the question on a cough that sounded suspiciously like it covered a laugh.

  “I’m not saying purebred, but those ranch dogs often look like they’re related to collies. A ranch collie. Look at him, the way his ears tip, the markings around his ruff, the long nose. And I’ll bet he’ll have a good coat when he’s cleaned up.”

  “If he’s ever cleaned up.”

  “I think he has a certain panache.” There was silence beside me. I looked over. “Don’t you think so?”

  “I think it’s a damned good thing you already named him Shadow, because any Wyoming dog would starve himself to death rather than be called Panache.”

  I laughed. Shadow skittered toward the garage. It was something he’d have to get used to, because laughing was something I wanted to get used to.

  Tamantha Burrell came around the corner from the direction of the driveway, determination in every line of her narrow face.

  With dimples and curls she might be called cute. Tamantha had ears that poked out between straight, almost lank hair, and extremities that tended to stick out of whatever she wore, as if she’d grown since she got dressed that morning. She’s called bossy.

  Chances are she won’t outgrow the label. In fact, in another fifteen years, as she climbs whatever career ladder she decides on—and if Tamantha decides to climb those rungs will get climbed—she’ll surely pick up the other “B” tag: bitch. If she reaches grandmotherdom, her decisiveness might, finally, become “character.”

  When she spotted Shadow, her expression shifted from disapproval to admonishment. I was cravenly grateful it was directed at her father. “I wouldn’t have waited this long if you’d said there was a dog. What’s his name?”

  “Shadow,” I said, since the question had been directed at me. “But he doesn’t like people. At least not yet. He’s been on his own a long time, and it seems he might have been treated badly. We have to be patient and give him time to get used to us. Don’t rush him. Don’t try to be friends with him until he’s ready.”

  She listened until I stopped, then turned and looked at the dog. Then at me. Then her father. It was the last two looks that had the hair rising on the back of my neck.

  “Daddy says some people are like that, too, and we should treat them just like what you said. Be real patient with them, wait for them to come to us. Not rush them. You know, people like you,” she said.

  I snapped my neck around to glare at the father of the pint-sized know-it-all. The move hurt my neck, as well as giving little satisfaction, because the brim of that all too useful cowboy hat hid his eyes, and the rest of his face was expressionless.

  “Daddy said we had to be patient—”

  “Tamantha.” Father and daughter looked at each other. This time, father won.

  I would not stoop to pumping a second-grader for information about what her father might have said. However, now that she was heading into third grade . . . but it would have to wait until the father wasn’t around.

  Tamantha turned to the dog and said, “I won’t hurt you, so don’t be silly. Come, Shadow.”

  And he did.

  Or almost. A heck of a lot closer that he’d come to me with the exception of the one time he’d assigned himself as my guard dog.

  “Good dog,” she said. “Now eat your food.”

  She came and sat on a lower step between her father and me, extending her legs in front of her, emphasizing that her pants were even shorter on her than they had been when I met her at the start of May. She wore a top with bright red and yellow stripes that had to be new because the sleeves almost covered her wrists.

  Shadow ate. Whenever he glanced toward us, it was directed to Tamantha, and I’d have sworn the message was see how good I’m doing at exactly what you told me?

  When he finished, Tamantha said, “Good dog. Now let’s go see what’s in this yard.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “She’ll be okay,” Tom said to me. To his daughter he added, “Don’t bring back any live snakes.”

  She stood and started off. Shadow stared at her a moment, then trotted along parallel to her, though ten feet to the side. He wagged his tail. It was the first time I’d seen him wag his tail.

  I found myself grinning stupidly. “Your daughter is terrifying.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I turned to view his profile. “Single parenthood tough?”

  “Not her doing. It’s the wondering if there are better ways, or things you’re forgetting or never knew.” His mouth did that quirk thing. “’Specially woman things.”

  My opinion was that Tamantha would be better off learning woman things from the man sitting next to me than she would have been from her mother, but it wasn’t my place to say that. “You’ve got time. And I’d imagine your sister will be a big help.”

  “Yeah, she will.” He stretched one leg, seeming to signal a shift in the conversation. “Best tell you what I’ve learned while we have the chance. The shouting at Wednesday morning’s meeting with the rodeo committee was over Landry saying he wanted yet another bonus, or he wouldn’t bring in the stock. The committee’d about decided they had no choice but to pay, when Street arrived with the stock trucks. Best guess is that Landry was shouting at Street about the timeline of his arrival, taking the teeth out of his grab for another bonus. Less clear what Street was shouting about. One person who heard claimed Street said something about it was one thing with strangers, but Landry’d known him twenty years.”

  “What was one thing with strangers?”

  “No idea. The person didn’t stick around, though the shouting went on. Between the committee in the morning and the showdown with Street, I got three reports of Landry shouting on the phone. One, telling somebody they owed him and better rethink their high-and-mightiness. Two, telling Evan Watt he didn’t care what he’d said before, Watt better get his sorry ass to Sherman, pronto. Three, telling a liquor store they damned well better deliver.”

  That all fit.

  “Couple folks I talked to mentioned Landry was drinking hard,” he added. “They’d known him from other years, and they said this was new. And bad.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

  “Didn’t know last night.”

  I felt my brows hike. “You’ve talked to people since last night?”

  “Couple folks who work at the rodeo grounds go to the sam
e church as Tamantha and me.” He tipped his head to indicate his daughter’s approach. Shadow stopped well back. “Had a chance to talk a bit about what’s been happening at the rodeo grounds.”

  I understood and would cooperate with his inclination to cloak what was going on with generalities such as what’s been happening at the rodeo grounds. Though it wouldn’t have surprised me to discover his daughter knew more about the situation than we did.

  She announced, “I’ll be rodeo queen when I grow up.”

  “Will you?” Tamantha is not a girl I would have expected to have that ambition. For one thing, she’s not a pretty or even cute child. More important, I would have expected her not to waste her ambition on anything smaller than running several countries. On the other hand, Mrs. Parens had been a rodeo queen.

  “Yup. Probably a bunch of years in a row.”

  “Usually in these things, once you win, you can’t enter again.”

  She cast me a disdainful look. “Real queens rule forever, and I’ll be a real queen.”

  As I said, several countries. Come to think of it, Tamantha, Mrs. Parens, and Heather Upton might be sisters under the skin.

  Burrell stood, resting his hands on his daughter’s thin shoulders. She leaned back against him, as content as I’d ever seen her. “Time we got going. Tamantha and I—”

  My phone rang. I put a hand on it, but didn’t pull it out.

  “You’d best get that,” Burrell said.

  It was Mike. “Elizabeth. I’ve got something.”

  I didn’t move to make this private, and the Burrells stayed where they were. “The pictures you took?”

  He sighed. “Can’t see much except blurs on the beam. Otherwise, most of what I got is a bunch of deputies’ backs. In the one I mentioned on the message, you can see a deputy’s hand holding something with tweezers. What’s being held is mostly a pixilated squiggle. Maybe a thread. Maybe something else.”

  “Too bad. It was worth a try.”

  “I suppose. But here’s what I do have. Aunt Gee has good information that Stan Newton is in trouble financially.”

  Technology let us down with the pictures, but Aunt Gee’s grapevine worked fine in confirming what Burrell had presented last night. I needed to tell Mike about that. “How much trouble?”

  “That’s not clear yet.” That yet meant Aunt Gee remained on the case. “The other bit of news is that Jenny—”

  “Jennifer.”

  “Jennifer is emailing us a list of rodeos Landry’s company has worked the past five years—places, dates, contact names. Sending it to Richard, too. Since she’s done with that, she’s going to dig on that contractor going bankrupt.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Listen, how’d you like to come to Sunday dinner at Aunt Gee’s?”

  My eyes flicked to the Burrells, then away. Had Tom been about to issue an invitation? Had I wanted him to? “Uh . . .”

  “We can see what else she knows.”

  “I thought I’d go see Mrs. Parens today.”

  He made a sound that might be spelled, “hmm,” but carried as much warning of danger ahead as the loudest train whistle.

  Mike’s Aunt Gee and Mrs. Parens were next door neighbors and rivals. Rivals for what wasn’t clear, unless it was uncontested Empress of Cottonwood County. Mike had claimed he didn’t know the history and was neither brave enough nor stupid enough to ask.

  This from the man who’d faced down NFL defenders for enough years to build a nest egg and a reputation. The nest egg had bought him a ranch in the county; the reputation was going to help him secure a spot in big-time broadcasting when he chose.

  “Better see Mrs. Parens first this time,” he said, referring to a visit a few weeks back in which we’d had lunch with Aunt Gee, then answered Mrs. Parens’ summons to visit her in her front parlor. “That way, she gets to feel good about our going there first, and Aunt Gee gets to feel she stole us away.”

  “You make it sound like negotiating a cease fire between World War II combatants.”

  “At least they had the Geneva Conventions. Pick you up at one-thirty.” We hung up.

  Burrell said, “Dinner at Gisella’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t do better than that. I suggest you leave room for chocolate pie.”

  How could he think there’d be room left for anything after being fed by Aunt Gee? “Chocolate pie? The Haber House Hotel?”

  “Yep. Sit in Kelly’s section. But don’t go until Sunday rush is over. I don’t know her, she’s just signed on this summer, but I’m told she won’t give you any time if you interfere with her tips.”

  “Why do I want Kelly’s time?”

  “Because of who she served lunch to Wednesday.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  ONE-THIRTY LEFT me wallpaper-chipping time before getting cleaned up. The bathroom of this rental house featured Night of the Living Dead green paint covering the light fixture and window, plus wallpaper with platter-sized cabbage roses of purple and black.

  As a break from the tedious paint-chipping, I had started removing the wallpaper, only to discover that behind this layer were previous layers, each covered in paint. So, my break from tedious paint-chipping had become tedious paint-covered wallpaper chipping. Ah, the glamour.

  But first, I called Matt Lester at his home in a suburb of Philadelphia. His wife, Bonnie, answered.

  “Danny! How are you? I hate you being off by yourself in the middle of nowhere living in what sounds like a shack.”

  “Hovel,” I amended under my breath. “But how do you know about my living quarters?”

  “Oh. Uh, you know, I, uh, heard.”

  “Good God, Bonnie, did my mother call you?”

  “No!”

  “So it was Mel.”

  Silence greeted that stab in the not-so-dark. “Actually, I called him. He is your agent now. He was so nice those times we’d met him and . . . We’d heard nothing for so long, I was worried.”

  Guilt surged as it could only for someone trained in the Catherine Danniher School of Guilt-Riddenness.

  Bonnie and Matt had taken me in for several weeks during the first shock-waves of my life upheaval, but I had steered clear of them until a few weeks ago when I’d called asking Matt for Philly-related research. And here I was, doing the same thing.

  “Bonnie, I’m good. Well, maybe not all the way to good, not every day, but better. Really, truly, and honestly.”

  “I’m glad,” she said simply.

  “And I will be better about staying in touch. I will. I promise.”

  “Except that right now you need to ask Matt questions.”

  I chuckled. “You are the ideal wife for a journalist, you know that?”

  “I remind Matt of it several times a day. Here he is.”

  “Hey, Danny. Bonnie giving you a hard time about not being in touch?”

  “A little, but—”

  “Good. You deserve it. So, what can I do for you?” That was the way Matt wrote, too—to the point, but never belaboring it.

  “You did a series of pieces on animal rights protestors a while back, didn’t you? Two years ago?”

  “More like four. But, yeah.”

  “If you’ve still got the contacts and can find out anything about a group out here led by a guy named Roy Craniston, I’d appreciate anything you can get. On him and his associates.”

  He repeated the name, clearly noting it and the descriptions I gave him of the others. “Sure thing. I’ll make calls tomorrow.”

  And then we said good-bye, so he could get back to his family. And I could chip more painted wallpaper off the bathroom wall.

  NOT MUCH WALL had been freed of wallpaper when my cell rang from the pocket of the sweater hooked on the
bathroom doorknob.

  Caller ID allowed me to answer with, “Hi, Mel.”

  “I’m glad I got you, Danny. I feared you might have left Friday’s call with a mistaken impression.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I have great respect for you. I don’t want you to think for a second otherwise. You have always been so impressive. And even when you and Wes were moving frequently, driving so hard, I was impressed with all that you did, how much you achieved. Have achieved . . . are achieving. Impressive. Achievement, I mean.”

  When Mel beat a word into the ground, it was a clear sign of discomfort. When he stuttered around tenses, it was serious.

  “Thanks, Mel.” I crunched that out. I achieved? Or Wes achieved through me? “But—”

  “But,” he nearly shouted over me. “But things have changed now. And you seemed so unhappy when we saw you. Perhaps it’s time for something new, something different. Different priorities.”

  “Of course I was unhappy at Christmas and before I headed out here—I’d been demoted from New York to Sherman, Wyoming.”

  “Before that.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Yes, you were,” he said, stubbornly. “And we . . . I hate to think of you all alone out there. If you moved closer—”

  “Forget the St. Louis talk show. And I’m not alone.”

  That stopped him. But not for long. “You’re not? Well! That’s splendid. Already! I know . . .” He broke off into coughing.

  When it subsided, I said, “I seem to have acquired a dog.”

  I hadn’t missed that I know. But he was on guard about it now. Far better to pump him later.

  I let the silence stretch, until he said, very carefully, “A dog? Well . . . that’s good. That’s very good. Isn’t it? What breed?”

  “Possibly collie.”

  “Oh, those are beautiful dogs.”

  “Don’t start thinking Lassie, Mel,” I scolded, remembering Tom’s laughter and grinning. “I’m told he’s a . . . a ranch collie.”